Patriarch of The Lears of Kittanning Point

Son of John BENJAMIN Lear and unknown mother, Atwell was a brick maker by trade, as was his father. He applied his trade at Columbia Furnace in Shenandoah County prior to the Civil War.

Atwell's surname, pronounced LAYer during his lifetime, had various spellings: "Löhr", "Lehr", "Lair", "Lare", "Laird", and "Leher". By the early 1900s, the surname spelling converged to the monosyllabic "Lear", as used by all his known descendents.

From the early to mid 1850s, Atwell partnered in free-unions with Frances Bowman and Matilda Helsley, fathering 2 children with each partner. These free-born children were raised by their mothers' families. Besides his first three children linked below, Atwell had a daughter, Mary Lear, with Frances Bowman in 1854.

On Apr. 30, 1860, two years after the birth of their son Calvin, Atwell was married to Hannah Hosaflook by the affidavit of Isaac Wymer (Hannah's maternal 1st cousin) before a Shenandoah County judge. (A reasonable conjecture is that Cousin Isaac wielded the "family shotgun" to facilitate this union!)

Near the end of the Civil War, Atwell, Hannah, their 4 young children, and Atwell's trade apprentice, William Wallace Glenn (who likely was Atwell's nephew; WWG's death certificate records that his mother's birth name was Comfort Laird), trekked over 150 miles by covered wagon from the Shenandoah Valley of VA to central PA, settling at Kittanning Point in Blair Co. Atwell and Hannah's named their first PA-born son William Glenn Lear to honor the service of Atwell's apprentice, who was enumerated in Atwell's household in the 1870 federal census.

Atwell established a brickyard at Kittanning Point (near Horseshoe Curve), which operated until his death. He and Hannah had six more children born in PA. In the late 1800s, Atwell purchased an 8-grave site in Carson Valley Cemetery, wherein he is buried. Atwell likely died in his home at Kittanning Point.
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